Relay stabilizer



1962 s. J. STARZEC 3,048,267

RELAY STABILIZER Filed Aug. 19, 1960 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 i INVENTOR.

SIan/ey J. S/arzec Alfy.

FIGZZB Z/ Aug. 7, 1962 s. J. STARZEC 3,048,267

RELAY STABILIZER Filed Aug. 19, 1960 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 JNVENTOR. Stanley J Sfarzec 3,048,267 RELAY STABILHZER tanley J. Starzec, Chicago, Ill, assignor to Automatic Electric Laboratories, Inc, Northlalre, lllL, a corporation of Delaware Filed Aug. 19, 1960, Ser. No. 50,626 1. Claim. (Cl. 206-46) The present invention pertains to mechanical stabilization of relays in shi ment, and particularly to a shock absorbing molded cavity for supporting relays in a shipping carton in a manner whereby the critical parts there of will be subjected to no significant pressures.

An adjusted relay is a delicate, instrument which must be handled in a manner which will preserve its adjustment if it is to be used on an assembly line without readjustment. It has been found that the critical points which must be protected are: the contact and terminal springs; the armature and its residual screw; the yoke and the yoke bearing pin; and the coil terminals. While the coil windings are not, of course, of a critical nature, they are also not of consistent size due to the different winding characteristics which are required for various applications of relays of the same general type. The coil Windings cannot therefore be used as supporting or bearing members.

in the past, relays have been packaged in cardboard inserts, resilient plastic, or a combination of the two. It has also been suggested that relays be packaged in two piece suspension molds wherein the relay is suspended by its end portions in molded styrene.

All of these plans for stabilizing the relay in the shipping package have been unsatisfactory for various reasons. Cardboard inserts have been found to not provide sufficient support or stability to prevent movement of the relay in shipment. A further shortcoming of cardboard insert is the amount of time required to pack and unpack the relay and the tendency of the handler to grasp the relay by the spring pileup or the armature portion thereof and thereby disturb the fine mechanical adjustment of the relay.

Resilient material does not have sufficient shock absorbing qualities to provide any assurance that the relay will not be subject to some abuse in shipment or handling, and because of its resilient nature this material cannot delineate the area of the relay which Will absorb any shock applied to the outside of the package. Shock force may therefore be applied to any of the above-mentioned critical areas with the natural result that the relay is knocked out of adjustment. Resilient plastic packaging has a further disadvantage that it is easily abraded by the sharp surfaces of the terminals and contact springs thereby resulting in minute particles lodging on the contact and in the working parts of the relay causing undue wear and corrosion.

The end suspension method does not provide a stable package, and also necessitates the support o the relay at or near its critical portions. Because of the configuration of the relay, the end suspension package is in contact with the relay at only a portion thereof. Any pressure applied to the suspension mold at a point removed from the carrying point of the relay, results in a shifting of the support relative to the relay. This shifting brings the molded plastic into contact with the coil terminals, the armature and yoke, and possibly the spring pileup. The terminals and contact springs being sharp, gouge out a certain amount of the molding material which then deposits on the contacts and in the mechanical parts. A further disadvantage of the end suspension mold results from the fact that the two end portions of the mold are not in fixed lateral position with one another so that ice any force applied thereto is transmitted through to the relay.

To be commercially desirable, a relay package must positively support the relay on noncritical bearing point. The relay package must be easily opened to permit access to the relay for production assembly. The relay must be so positioned in the package that it will not normally be picked up by the spring contacts or the armature assembly.

It is therefore a primary object of this invention to provide a relay package for supporting a relay on only noncritical bearing points.

Another object of this invention is to provide a relay package with positioning surfaces for positively maintaining the lateral position of the packaged relay on the primary supporting surfaces.

Still another object of this invention is to provide an intagliated relay package made of shock absorbing material with cavities formed therein to protect but not to touch the terminals and contact springs of the relay.

Still another object of this invention is to provide an intagliated relay package comprising an upper and lower formed section hinged at one end by an external strip of adhesive material and closed by an external sleeve.

Another object of this invention is to provide a two piece package in which any external force applied thereto is transmitted only to the package, and not to the contents.

It is a feature of the invention that the bottom intagliation of the two complementary sections be formed with less relief than the top so that when the package is in its normal position the top may be easily removed and the relay will remain in the bottom section.

Another feature of this invention is a package which includes a cavity to accept relay accessories such as plug units or mounting hardware without impairing the pro tective qualities of the package.

Still another feature of this invention is a package formed of two sections with mating edges so that the internal cavities are of constant size, and external blows are transmitted to the package structure only.

The relay package of this invention also includes the feature of automatic reflex identification of the upper and lower sections thereof by providing a lower section of colored material and an upper section of white material.

These and other objects and features of this invention will be apparent to one skilled in the art from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the drawings wherein:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the top portion of the package, sectioned to more clearly illustrate its construction;

FIGS. 2A and 2B are plan views of the top and bottom portions of the package;

FIGS. 3A, 3B and 3C are various views of a typical relay showing representative dimensions thereof;

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a bottom portion of a relay package of this invention sectioned to more clearly show its construction; and

FIG. 5 is a perspective view of an assembled relay package.

While the dimensions of the package will vary with the size of the relay to be accommodated, each package will form a spring pileup cavity, a set of bearing surfaces for engagement with the periphery of the coil spool heads, positioning surfaces for the face or flat surfaces of the spool heads, a coil terminal cavity, heelpiece bearing surfaces, and a residual screw cavity.

A typical relay as shown in FIG. 3 includes, as do all relays of this class, a coil 31 having at least two coil spool heads 61, a heelpiece 54 secured .to the coil assembly, a spring pileup 35 secured to the heelpiece, an armature assembly 56 pivotally secured to the heelpiece by means of an armature pin 56a and a yoke 56b. The armature of the illustrated relay has an actuating member associated with a pole piece or core 33 of the coil and one or more actuated arms 34 which are associated with the spring pileup. The actuating member 32 may also have a residual screw 36 positioned in its approximate center to prevent direct contact of the armature with the core and to establish an exact residual setting. The actuating arms may be narrower than the heelpiece as shown in the illustration or they may extend laterally beyond the heelpiece. Where the actuated arms extend beyond the heelpiece, the package of this invention is slightly modified to provide a relieved section for positioning the levers without applying pressure thereto.

Referring now to FIG. 4, the relay package of the present invention includes a bottom section 41 and a mating top section 42 which is hinged at one end by a label 43. To prepare a relay for shipment, the relay is placed in the bottom section 41 and the mating section 42 is fitted over the relay and engaged with the lower section in fixed lateral position. The label 43 is then placed on the end to form a hinge and the whole assembly is slidably placed into the sleeve 44 to complete the shipping package.

The sleeve 44 is the only locking means used on the entire package so that the packaged relays are easily accessible by sliding the two sections 41 and 42 out of the sleeve and removing the top section, which is not tightly engaged with the relay, thereby exposing the relay ready for installation.

The bottom section 41 (FIG. is formed of molded foam polystyrene with two outer side walls 46, two outer end walls 47, and a bottom wall 48 each of which is of sufiicient thickness at its point of minimum thickness to provide adequate shock absorbing protection for the particular type of relay for which the package is designed. The package shown in the drawing is designed for a class E relay which weighs approximately 3 to 5 ounces so that a minimum thickness of about of an inch for the package walls is adequate protection.

The interior of the section 41 is intagliated with a substantially rectangular cavity 51 to: receive the spring pileup of a relay. In terms of relative dimensions, this cavity is greater in length than the overall length of the contact springs and the terminal of the relay, which dimension is represented by the dimension X in FIG. 3. The width of the spring pileup cavity is predicated upon the dimension Y (FIG. 3), the maximum height of a spring pileup assembly. The spring pileup cavity 51 is defined on one side by a shock absorbing wall 52 and on the other side by a bearing surface 53. The bearing surface 53 is adapted to support the heelpiece 54 of a relay and is laterally relieved along the surface 56 to allow free suspension of the armature when the relay is positioned in the package.

An armature receiving cavity 57 is formed by a relieved section in the end shock absorbing wall 58, a bearing surface 59 adapted to vertically support a coil spool head 61 and a coil relief section 62. The armature cavity 57 includes a residual screw relief cavity 65 formed in the wall 58 to assure that the residual screw 36 on the armature of the relay will not be subjected to any shock or pressure. The coil relief section 62 has, in addition to the spool head bearing surface 5?, two other spool head bearing surfaces 64 and 66. The middle spool head support is provided for double wound relays and terminates in an enlarged opening 67 which receives the heelpiece extension and serves the purpose of providing additional bearing support as well as lateral support to prevent lateral movement of the relay in the package.

A lateral stop 68 is formed adjacent the coils spool head bearing surface 66 for providing further lateral support to the relay. The stop 68 is positioned adjacent the spring pileup cavity 51 and a distance Z (FIG. 3) from the spool head bearing surface 59 so that the relay is laterally positioned between the two surfaces by cooperation of the package surfaces with noncritical surfaces of the heelpiece on one end and outside of the spool head on the other. The stop 68 is also provided with a shoulder 68a on which the head of a heel plate screw 71 rests, and a partially cylindrical relieved section 6812 for support of a plug-in mounting fixture When shipped with the relay. When a plug-in fixture is shipped with the relay, it is attached thereto and the major portion of the plug is positioned in the plug cavity 72. In the absence of a plug-in fixture, the cavity 72 is utilized for shipment of mounting hardware for the relay.

The entire intagliated portion of the lower section 41 is surrounded by a raised shoulder 73 which forms a rectangular inset above the intagliation of the section. The outside walls of the upper section 42 are cut away to form a rectangular insertable portion 74 (FIG. 1) which cooperates with the inset of the lower section 41 to permit adjacent positioning of the two contoured sections and positive lateral engagement of the sections 41 and 42.

The intagliated portion of the upper section 42 is a mirror image of the intagliation of the lower section 41, formed also of molded foam polystyrene, with the exception that the lateral dimensions of the cavities in the upper section 42 are all sufficiently larger than those of the cavities in the lower section 41 so as to assure a relatively loose fit between the upper section and the relay as opposed to the relative tight fit of the lower section with the noncritical bearing surfaces of the relay. The package is formed in this manner to facilitate the opening of the package without inadvertent removal of the relay which might cause dropping thereof and defeat the Whole purpose of the shock absorbing package.

As noted earlier, the lower section 42 is formed of colored foam styrene so that the package is automatically opened right-side-up.

In describing the intagliation of the package of this invention, the terms bearing surface and lateral positioning surface have been used to describe the vertical and horizontal bearing surfaces respectively when the package is in its normal position with the lower section 41 placed on a horizontal surface with its intagliated portion upward and the upper section 42 placed thereon with its intagliated section facing downward and held in fixed lateral position by cooperation of the projections 73 and 74. The dimensions are given for illustration only and are intended to be representative of similar dimensions for relays of this general classification.

While this invention has been described in a particular embodiment for use with an illustrated relay, it is understood that modifications may be made therein and different relays packed, without departing from the spirit and scope of this invention as defined in the appended claim.

I claim:

The combination with a relay including a coil, a plurality of coil spoolheads having a diameter which is larger than that of the coil, coil connected terminals mounted on one spoolhead, a heelpiece mounted on the coil, a spring pileup mounted on the heelpiece, and armature yoke mounted near one end of the heelpiece, and an armature pivotally mounted on the armature yoke and engaged with the contact members on the spring pileup for operation thereof responsive to operation of the coil, of a shipping package formed of molded foam polystyrene comprising: a first section intagliated in substantially the shape of one-half of said relay, said first section including an armature cavity all dimensions of which are greater than the corresponding dimensions of said armature, a plurality of spoolhead slots the bottom walls of which are built up to provide a vertical bearing for said spoolheads, a coil cavity relieved between said spoolhead slots, a heelpiece cavity the bottom wall of which is built up to provide a vertical bearing surface for said heelpiece, a relieved section adjacent said heelpiece cavity for positioning said coil connectors, and a spring pileup cavity adjacent the bearing surface of said heel-piece cavity the dimensions of the spring pileup cavity being larger than the corresponding dimensions of said spring pileup; a second section intagliated in a mirror image of said first section; and means comprising projections and indentations in the adjacent surfaces of said sections, registering when the sections are placed together for positioning said first section with said second sect-ion in a fixed position to cause the slots of both sections to fit snugly over said spool-heads and said surfaces to support a relay by pressure applied only by said vertical bearing surfaces and slots to the spoolheads and heelpiece thereof to preremainder =of the relay including said armature and spring pileup is held in suspension so that said armature and spring pileup can not engage any portion of said polystyrene package.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,679,281 Paulucci May 25, 1954 10 2,858,014 Koziol Oct. 28, 1958 2,860,768 Smithers NOV. 18, 1958 OTHER REFERENCES Modern Pack-aging (publication), June 1959, 206-46 vent endwise or sidewise movement of said relay and the 15 FRAD., page 25. 

